Welcome to this week’s transcript of the Talking the Blues Podcast, recorded on Sunday 16th early evening, BST. Our transcripts are provided for those who have difficulty in listening to traditional podcasts or prefer the written format. The transcripts are generated by AI, and whilst almost always accurate, sometimes misinterpret occasional words. We hope you enjoy them, feedback is always welcome:

Cast: Andy – Andy Costigan, George – George Costigan, Paul – Paul Quinn
David Bowie (opening music)
I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes, just for one day
Paul: I think probably there’s so much news to cover this week but I think first and foremost and probably still on the minds of almost all Evertonians and certainly many other football fans probably around the world actually is the very sad passing of Kevin Campbell so I think we should probably start there I mean what can you say about the match?
George: Too sudden too. I saw him only 10 days ago on some chat show and he was full of life.
Paul: Yeah, I mean, it’s very, very sad. I think, well, it is in the public domain that he had kidney issues. And sadly, his demise was very, very quick. I suppose I shouldn’t have been very bad. I was just completely overwhelmed by the response of people on social media.
And then more generally, the response of people in and around football. He was just there. He was just let’s talk about him from the point of view of him as a person in the first instance. And obviously, I suppose we should say in the first instance as well, our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and to his friends and anybody that was associated with him.
If our grief is palpable, goodness knows what your grief is because you would be the people closest to him. And you would be the people who loved him and experienced him day in, day out and to have him taken away from you.
So suddenly, so quickly. And as George said, at such a young age, must be, just must be an impossible situation. So whilst obviously we do remember Kevin, I think in the first and foremost, it’s his family and friends that we must consider.
And, you know, everybody has been very respectful so far and we will, we be so obviously we can’t go into this podcast just ignoring what’s happened. And so as a person, I don’t I don’t recall ever seeing anybody that didn’t have anything but the highest and the most fulsome praise for the guy and everybody that met him has a funny story to tell.
Andy: I think that’s what’s come through on social media and on the TV, obviously, we’ve got the Euros on, so he’s been mentioned a few times in the preamble before the games and what have you. He appears to be, you know, most footballers are popular, but some more popular than others.
He seems to have been universally popular.
George: Sorry, mate, go on.
Andy: obviously respected by Arsenal fans, Evertonians. I actually had a message from someone who’s well-connected at West Brom to say that the whole of the West Brom community were devastated when they heard the news.
And he was only with them a short time. But he thoroughly enjoyed his time as a West Brom player. And he just seems to have made that mark with every club he played for. He’s been universally popular.
Because the big thing about him, the one thing I remember about him as a player, is he never, ever gave anything less than his best effort. And that’s all we ever asked for as supporters, that players play with their heart on their sleeve and give of their best effort.
And fans are always critical of players. For various parts of the game, I don’t think anybody’s ever could, I’ve never heard anybody criticise Kevin Campbell, other than being a full -blooded, wholesome, give everything for the team who’s shirt he was wearing, kind of guy.
And obviously what he did for Everton in his time as a Blue puts him right up with, he does actually put him right up there with some of the greats who’ve worn, or not some of the greats, with the other greats who’ve worn the blue shirt.
And for that, he should be remembered and revered and never forgotten.
Paul: Yeah, well said Andy. George, what were your thoughts?
George: Nothing, nothing to add to that, but sorry that’s absolutely right. Yeah, and that’s why he connected to everybody, because as Andy said that’s all the thing that connects us to every Partick Thistle, Dumbarton, Stockport County fan is respect for people who give everything because it is all you ask and it’s really annoying when players don’t because you think my god you’re being rewarded for this.
He never played for the reward he played for the joy of the game and you could it was you could you could touch it and feel it and see him in him see it in him and that’s why everybody really liked him and respected him and that’s why everybody’s been so grief stricken.
Paul: I think he lived his life that way didn’t he George? He lived his life not necessarily for the award, every award that life brings you, but just for the sheer joy.
George: It looked like it, didn’t it? It looked like it, yeah.
Paul: I mean just, I remember the last time I saw him was the Bournemouth game at the end of the season, the season before last, and he was walking on Goodison Road and it must have been about, probably about an hour and a half before kick off, and it was really crowded for that time, I think it was because obviously it was such an important game, and if you recall it was a beautiful afternoon, a bit windy but a beautiful afternoon, and I was standing outside the Winslow with a few other people, and this guy appeared, it’s Kevin Campbell, and there was just like a parting of the waves, it was a bit like Moses going through the Red Sea except this was the Blue Sea, and then everybody just started singing his name, and I will never ever forget the smile on his face when everybody started singing his name, it was just sheer joy from him, and just sheer love and adoration from everybody that was around him, and just talking to the people I was with, they said it’s like that every week, because obviously I don’t get to the game so often these days, and I was like wow, it’s completely blown away by it, and I was like no, no, it’s like that every week every time, it always goes for a pint, and it’s exactly the same, it’s just incredible, amazing.
George: Good story.
Paul: A couple of interesting things about him, in his first full season in Arsenal youth he scored 59 goals
George: Oh my God.
Paul: And a starter for ten, a university challenge, no conferring. Who did he make his senior team debut against in, I think it was March 1988?
Andy: Cool, and as a…
Paul: Everton, yeah. Playing for Arsenal.
Andy: Did he score?
Paul: That’s, there’s a bonus question, Andy. Oh, right. No, actually, I didn’t look up the score. I just remembered reading it somewhere and I just checked it to make sure it was correct. And yeah, his first senior game was in 1989 and it was against Everton.
Paul: It would obviously still be at Highbury and I’m just trying to think what the score would have been. Um, no, can’t, anyway, yeah.
George: Why not fall?
Paul: And then, of course, it was 11 years later that he turned up at Goodison and what an impact he had at Goodison. I don’t know if you heard it, but there’s a lovely story. Well, actually, there’s so many lovely stories, but he came to Everton from his time in Turkey.
And there’s a couple of really funny stories. The first one is when he joined, it was Trabzonspor, wasn’t it, that he joined? And this wasn’t even like a game. It was just an open training session at their old stadium, not the modern stadium that they’re in now, but the old stadium that they’re in.
And the story goes that like 30,000 people, a capacity crowd, turned up just to watch them train. And they were all in the ground an hour and a half before the training was due to start. And Campbell’s meeting his teammates in the changing room, such as it was.
And they had to line up in this corridor that sort of ran sideways to the pitch so you couldn’t actually see the pitch. And he’s at the back because obviously they wanted to bring him out last, given that he was like the big signing.
And everything else. And he said he’s standing there and he’s like his teammates are going ahead of him as he’s getting towards his time to enter the pitch. This really old Turkish guy appears with a big, thick rope and he’s tugging like mad on this rope.
And the rope goes around the corner because there’s a bit of a kink in the tunnel. Anyway, cut a long story short. You keep pulling on this rope and the next minute this bloody goat appears at the other end of the rope.
Pardon my language, but Kevin Campbell says this goat’s shitting everywhere all over the corridor. Anyway, this old Turkish guy, he’s got in one hand, he’s got this rope and he’s dragging this goat onto the pitch.
In the other hand, he’s got like this 40 inch blade, you know, a metal blade, a knife, and Campbell follows him onto the pitch, you know, and everybody like going nuts and everything else. And this guy is standing there with this poor goat and he flicks the goat over onto his back and slits the goat’s throat.
George: Oh
Paul: Yeah, right. And apparently, it was a tradition. And somebody came up to Campbell and said, right, what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to like, dip your finger. So I’m sorry if this screws from anybody having dinner or anything when they’re listening to this, but you got to dip your finger into where the goat’s throat had been cut, cover it with blood, put a little mark on your forehead.
But you’ve also got to put a blood mark on your boots. And this is apparently a tradition that’s gone on for years and years and years. And in the story, Campbell says, and the thing he was most worried about was the fact that he was wearing white Puma boots, and the blood was going to ruin his boots
Anyway, he does it. And then they, obviously, by this time, the goats, they take the goat off. And while the training sessions are on, they cook the goat. And they hand the goat out to all the poor people around the stadium.
And apparently, it was a tradition, whether it’s still a tradition today or not. I don’t know, but that was his introduction. And obviously, when he was there, it sort of didn’t always go great for him.
I think he had some issues with racism while he was there. And once he got the call that Everton were interested in him from his agent, I think there were seven or eight clubs that were interested in him.
He said, Yeah, absolutely, you know, Everton are a big club. So he flew into London, and then he got a flight from London to Manchester, where he was being picked up by Smith, by Walter Smith. And so he’s sitting on a BA flight from Heathrow to Manchester.
And he’s sitting there, and he’s sitting next to a guy who turns out to be an Evertonian. And Campbell decides he’s going to have a bit of fun with this guy. So he doesn’t say who he is. And he gets chatting with the guy, you know, who do you support?
Are you a blue or a red? And that’s right. And he decides to have a bit of fun with him. So he says, Are you a blue or a red? And this guy says, Well, I’m a blue.
And Campbell goes, Oh, that’s great. How are they doing? So he spends about 40 minutes, this guy telling him how terrible Everton were at the time, and how we were really struggling. And we were, I think, at the time, 15th in the league, and you know, Walter Smith was not very popular, nice man, nice manager and everything else, but not very popular with the crowd.
And, you know, there’s a real prospect of relegation and anything else. Campbell says absolutely nothing. But he does, he sort of drops a bit of a hint to the guy and he says, Oh, you know, I’m maybe taking a job in Liverpool.
And in fact, actually, enough, I’m meeting a guy called Smith. When I get up there, and this guy doesn’t twig at all, he’s got no idea who Kevin Campbell, clearly, he’s got no idea who Kevin Campbell is let alone that he might be joining Everton.
So they get off the plane at Manchester, and they walk through, you know, arrivals together. And apparently, they swapped telephone numbers, and Campbell said, let’s keep in touch and really enjoy the conversation and everything else.
So they walk out of arrivals at Manchester. And there’s Walter Smith waiting for Kevin Campbell.
George: Mm -hmm.
Paul: And Campbell goes in this guy’s face when he realised, A), it was Walter Smith, and B), who Kevin Campbell was, was an absolute picture. Anyway, they all had a bit of a laugh and everything else, and the guy says, you know, it was great fun, blah, blah.
And Kevin says, I’ll keep in touch with you, don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch with you. And he did, and the last game of the season, you know, they won the game against, well, the last game at Goodison when we won 6 -0 against West Ham when Campbell scored a hat -trick.
Invited him to the game, and the guy that he sat next to on the plane.
Andy: That’s nice.
Paul: top story. And I’m sure there’s hundreds of other similar stories, but there were just two that I picked up on. I would imagine Walter Smith would have seen the funny side of that as well. Should we score?
We’re going to get onto other stuff in a couple of minutes, but you scored nine goals in the last eight games, wasn’t it? Yeah. I’m going to test your memories to see if you can remember who you scored against.
George: Like you’ve run here and this
Andy: Um I’ll do
Paul: Yep, we won 4 -1.
Andy: Yeah. Good thing, heck.
Paul: Mmhmm.
George: I bet you were at every game, Andy.
Andy: I don’t think I was actually our kid.
Paul: So we were in deep trouble because we lost four games on the run. We lost to Arsenal, United, Liverpool and Sheffield United. We lost those four games and then we went into the Coventry game and we were in 16th position and we were really struggling and he scored the two goals in that which we won 2 -0.
Andy: Coventry was away wasn’t it? No, that was at home.
Oh, that was a good issue. Yeah. And then you…
Paul: which was the following game, was away when we won 3 -1 and Scott Gemmell scored the other one. Yeah, who signed with him. Yeah, that’s right. He did. And then Charlton was the 4 -1 game when he scored two goals again.
So he scored six in three. He didn’t score against Chelsea when we lost. And then he scored a hat -trick, if you remember, which was the final home game of the season against West Ham when we won 6 -0.
And by that time we were 14th and safe.
Andy: That’s an element of an impact.
Paul: But I suppose he’ll always be remembered for scoring at Anfield
Andy: Anfield, yeah. Everybody who scores at Anfield gets remembered. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, we needed that one big time.
Paul: Yeah, we did. And of course, that was the last time we won it the apart from the Covid game. Yeah. Mm hmm. Amazing. And, you know, I suppose lots of blues can talk for hours about him and lots of blues will.
And it’s very sad. But anyway, that’s our little memory of him. And, yeah, loving prayers to everybody that’s Yeah, to establish. And and and and indeed, of course, other Evertonians because clearly.
Yeah, yeah. And he obviously meant a great deal to a huge number of people. And, you know, there will be people who’ve got much greater exposure to him than any of the three of us did, who will be feeling it even more so.
Paul: So.
Andy: Yeah, absolutely. Well, while we’re at it, I mean, and we’ve already said that, you know, taken too young, I think we should also mention the sad death of the Millwall goalkeeper at 26.
George: Oh, yeah.
Paul: Yeah, I wasn’t aware of the cause, I was aware that he passed away, but I didn’t know the circumstances behind it.
Andy: No, I don’t, I’ve not looked at any detail, but it was, you know, that was reported yesterday as well. 26 years of age. That’s, you know, that’s horrendous. You know, so thoughts to his family as well.
George: Yeah.
Paul: Gosh, okay, well, let’s try and lift the mood a little bit. It seems that we’ve got new owners.
George: Tell us all about it.
Andy: yeah that came out of the blue a little bit didn’t it because it came the name the name appeared only kind of early last week and it looks like they’re now um obviously that that’s the the preferred bed is this the third preferred bed well really
Paul: of the craziest week for anybody that was involved in everything and anybody that was involved in the takeover activity. I’ve been involved in quite a few takeovers over the years and I think most people understand that I had some involvement in this one.
I’ve never witnessed anything like it. I’ve never witnessed such changes in direction. One minute thinking that it was going the way that perhaps you wanted it to go because you were involved in another bid and then somebody else perhaps, first of all being mentioned in the media and then being mentioned by Farhad Moshiri’s people.
It was just absolutely crazy and I think sometimes, I think we all forget sometimes actually how hard some people have to work on transactions like this. I know there are millions of people that work hard doing whatever job that they do but literally for the last, probably for the last 10, 15 days perhaps, there have been people working on this for like 20 hours a day.
Lawyers, bankers, financiers, all sorts of different people and not all of them got the outcome that they wanted obviously because some people were working on stuff that didn’t end up happening. It was just remarkable.
I know on two occasions, one particular party was told as I say on two separate occasions by Farhad Moshiri that they had got the deal and that they should prepare whatever it was that they had to prepare in order to see the deal through then only to find out on the Friday that Moshiri changed his mind and Moshiri changed his mind because we’ll get into a bit more of the detail of the Friedkin deal in a minute.
Moshiri ultimately changed his mind because the Friedkin deal offered Moshiri better terms than the other deals had offered.
Andy: That was always like, it was always like to be the case that he was going to hang on to the last minute to try and extract a better offer from somebody wanted. Yeah, I mean, understandably, I mean, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not being critical of him for that.
You know, he wants to recover as much as he can. And so he’s gone as long as he can. The only trouble is that the amount of time it’s taken, it’s eaten into the close season. And it puts whoever takes over, whether it’s the freaking group or or whoever, and it gives them less and less time to begin the work of repair before we have to start a new season.
And I just think, you know, I understand where this year is coming from, that he wants as much of his investment back as he can, but. As he has done that purely in his own interest, because it doesn’t strike me as being in the best interest of every football club, because I said to me, well, it’s put us further behind the eight baller when we were already behind.
Yeah.
Paul: volunteer occasions, argued that what Moshiri was doing was massively unprofessional, didn’t put the club’s interests to the fore, put his own interests to the fore, his judgments in terms of the people that he chose.
And this is probably the last time we ever need to talk about 777 on this podcast, hopefully it is, you know, the choice of 777. And the idea that, I mean, when one looks back at it, and you listen to his words on the 15th of September last year, it’s just, it’s absolutely crazy.
The fact that he thought that they were the best people to take over every single football club. And you know, some, it’s interesting because obviously people will be aware there’s several court cases going through the US at the moment.
And whilst I’m not going to comment on the actual cases themselves, some of the evidence that’s been presented in those cases and is in the public domain, because the judges allowed them to be so some of that evidence fired Moshiri and fired Moshiri’s people would have seen in when they did any due diligence that they did do.
Yes. Well, then if they didn’t do any due diligence, how could you possibly claim they were the best people
Andy: Well, exactly, but I mean, I mean, you’ve just said then, Paul, that he made those statements about 777 being, in his opinion, the best option could ever go back on September the 15th, did you say?
Paul: Yeah.
Andy: And here we are now on, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s the 16th of June, and we’re now into a third or a fourth party, because if you count 777 and then A-CAP and then we assume that the bid from Andy Bell and George Downing, and now we’re with the Friedkin, so that’s the fourth one that we are absolutely certain of.
And if that’s going to take a further four to six weeks for that to be ratified and for it to be, you know, all eyes dotted and teeth crossed.
George: We could have sold the 13 squad by then.
Andy: Well, we’re going to be well, we’re going to be in August. So what should have taken 10 or 12 weeks originally as taking the thick end of 11 months? And that cannot be good. There’s a short term future of Everton Football Club.
And that’s why I’m saying that you know, the club is already behind the eight ball. We’ve got a new owner to be ratified and come in and start to start the repair work. I mean, it’s going to be the first hundred days for them to take it over.
They talk about the first hundred days of a new government. Imagine the pressure on the first hundred days on the new ownership. And it’s because of pre-varication from Farhad Moshiri.
Paul: I’m absolutely fine.
George: He doesn’t give a shite, Andy. He is running for the hills with his carpet bags bulging with the best he could manage. He’ll never look back and he’ll never think about it again.
Andy: Well, maybe not, but there’s probably half a million blues around the world who will be thinking about it.
George: Absolutely Andy, absolutely. We’re going to carry the can down the road for quite some time I would imagine.
Andy: And that’s what I say that the new ownership, whoever it might be, has got, you know, there’s, well, they’ve got they’ve got the work cut out, they really, really have. And it’s, you know, all the nonsense of preferred bids and best interest, you know, the best going forward, DMA, talk about whacko decisions.
I mean, Paul, to be fair, you know, you’ve banged that drum from day one on 777 and subsequently on A-CAP. And what have you, it’s just nonsense.
George: I’m tempted to ask the question that I think most Blues will be wanting to know about is does this takeover in any way protect us from having to sell the people we don’t want to sell?

Note – the original audio contained content that I was asked to remove, which I have now done so both from the transcript and the audio file. Thank you for your understanding and apologies to anyone offended by the content. Incidentally the content was comments made by myself entirely and did not include George nor Andy.

So to answer your question George, I don’t think it changes much for a number of reasons, one is the timing because four to six weeks is my estimation of how long this will take.The club hasn’t said anything because actually formally the takeover hasn’t started yet.
Moshiri said who is preferred buyer is now which is the Friedkin group, Dan Friedkin in particular and whilst they’ve indicated that they want to go ahead with it, they haven’t formally said that they’re going ahead with it, they will do either tomorrow which is Monday if you’re listening to this on the Sunday or on Tuesday.
One of the things that they have to do in the first instance in order to get into the exclusivity point which is where then it becomes sort of real is provide the funds to pay off MSP which is about ₤158 maybe ₤160 million and also provide some additional funding for the club because the club has a big item of expenditure in about five or six days time over around about ₤40 million and that relates to the stadium.
Right and one of the two of the conditions of going forwards with this for the Friedkin Group are to make that payment to MSP and to make that payment so that the club satisfies its obligations to Laing O’Rourke.
Now I’ve got absolutely no doubt that they will go ahead and do that, they have the resources to do it from what I learnt on Friday afternoon that they’re committed to this and you know they want to do it so I am expecting them to either do it tomorrow or on Tuesday at the very latest.
Then the exclusivity will be announced and we then go through the process that took nine months with 777 but will take a considerably shorter period of time with the Friedkin Group and why will it take a shorter period of time well because it’s very easy to establish first of all that they’ve got their money secondly that they will meet all of the other requirements of the fit and proper person known as test as it’s more properly known and that they can fund whatever the club needs going forwards, but specifically to answer your question, George, and we did ask for questions earlier on Twitter, and I’m not going to mention everybody’s name because there were over 30 questions, but quite a few people asked what does it mean for the transfer window.
Now, depending upon when this deal actually concludes and when actually they own 94% of Everton Football Club, if that’s done before the end of the transfer window, then things might change at the end of the transfer window, but between now and then, it’s going to be pretty much as we thought it would be had there not been a change of ownership.
Maybe slightly less pressure to sell, sell, sell, but it still means that we’re going to sell.
George: Right.
Paul: I think Onana is definitely going and despite having heard during the week from a pretty well respected agent that Branthwaite was prepared to stay at Everton and do another year at Everton, I’m pretty certain in my own mind at least that he’s going to move to another Premier League club.
Andy:I mean, given the length of time that this sale of the club by Moshiri struck, take over the club by whoever has dragged on, is there no way that the club can ask the Premier League or put a case forward to the Premier League that, you know, because of our long dragged on since September last year for an accommodation with regards to what may be coming down the track in terms of having to sell players to satisfy profit and sustainability rules again.
I mean, it’s not the club’s fault. It’s the club’s fault that they’ve fallen into issues with profit and sustainability, but it’s not the club’s fault, per se, that this takeover and sale has dragged on so long.
So is there no chance that the Premier League could be asked for, as I say, an accommodation which would take the pressure off, hopefully, having to sell and having to sell, arguably, our most valuable asset or assets, if it would be more than one player?
Paul: I think it’s a really interesting question, Andy, and it’s a question that should be asked of the Premier League. I think the counter argument to that is, well, you could have sold the club to the right people at any time in the last 9 or 12 months, and you chose not to.
Not the club, obviously the owner, but the responsibility falls back on the club, unfortunately. So I think it would be 50 -50. Interestingly…
Andy: Paul, just let me come in then. At the same time that this has been dragging on, do we know if the Premier League have ever spoken to Moshiri to say, listen, Paul, the longer you drag this out, the more problems your club is going to run into?
Paul: You’d like to think so, you’d like to think that there’s a relationship, maybe not between sharing the Premier League, but say, between Everton’s interim CEO Colin Chong. Yeah. And his counterpart might be Richard Masters and might be somebody else within the Premier League, who says, you know, really should get this sorted out.
Or, you know, what’s the situation? That’s, I can’t believe that they just operated in that in complete isolation of each other in the last nine months, you know, whilst this supposed takeover by triple seven has trundled along.
I just don’t believe that for a second. So you’d hope that those types of sensible conversations have already taken place. If they haven’t. And one of the interesting aspects about when Dan Friedkin took over, excuse me, Roma was that Roma were in really deep trouble.
We’re in really deep trouble with UEFA over UEFA’s financial fair play rules. And they got a partial dispensation when they took over. So it wasn’t complete, but it was partial and it gave them a little bit more breathing room than they had before they came in.
Because Roma was owned by a guy called James Pallota, another American hedge fund investor. And he made such a mess of that football. I mean, it was a, there are some similarities actually between both clubs.
They were in a real financial mess. And they hadn’t got as far as, well, didn’t get anywhere near as far as we got, you know, with the stadium for the project. They’d been trying to build a new stadium and in fact still are trying to build a new stadium and haven’t succeeded yet for all sorts of reasons, not finance, but just political reasons within Rome.
And funny enough, and again, this is something that’s going to happen, I think, at Everton. In Rome, one of the big issues is who pays for all of the infrastructure and development work that needs to go into not just the stadium, but, you know, rail links and road links and everything else.
And Rome, the Rome city authorities are saying to Roma, you have to pay for it. And Roma have been saying all along, well, yeah, we’ll pay something. But actually, you know, at the end of the day, you’re the people who are responsible for building infrastructure in the city, not as a football club.
And I suspect the same, you know, those same conversations. And we’ve talked about it, haven’t we, in recent weeks. We’ll now go on between Everton Football Club, Liverpool City Council, the regional authority run by Steve Rotherham and an incoming Labour government.
So they may, Everton may find it easier than Friedkin has with Roma. But going back to your point, they definitely had those discussions with UEFA early on. And although for a number of years, they’ve been under some form of regulatory control, so they’ve been limited in terms of what they can spend.
But this was an agreed settlement with UEFA that Friedkin put in place. So there’s no reason to suspect why having done it once with Roma and UEFA, he hasn’t got the gumption to go and do it again with the Premier League.
What the impact of that is. Who knows?
George: No.
Paul: or what the outcome of it is, not impactful. So, what was the other question?
George: things that you got called.
Paul: Okay, so now, well, first of all, who is this guy? Right, so he’s an American.
George: He produced Martin Scorsese’s last film, Flowers of the Killer Moon. And I don’t know because I can’t be asked about it, but the name Friedkin goes right through American Hollywood history. Friedkin directed and produced The Exorcist.
Paul: Yeah, although I think that’s a slightly, I think they’re distantly related.
George: They’ve obviously got their fingers in that pie anyway.
Paul: Yeah, very much so, because I looked it up to The Square, which I don’t know, All The Money in the World, The Mule and Killers of the Flower Moon. And the last one he directed was The Last Vermeer. Don’t know if they mean anything to you.
And he also took a, he’s a licensed pilot. That’s right. Yeah. He also went.
George: flying the Spitfire in Dunkirk.
Paul: Yeah.
George: because his personal spitfire is in better condition than the ones the RAF have got. Was that right? Yeah. I mean, this guy must have looked at the situation that we were just discussing and gone, right, this is a three year job to stabilise this to even start with.
So he will not, I’m imagining, I mean, I’m putting words in his mouth, but I, you know, I mean, as a fan, all I’m bothered about is do we have to lose Onarna and Pickford and DCL and Branthwaite to balance the books from the last bollocks.
George: And I suspect his answer will be, yeah, don’t worry about it. I’m going to balance the books. And in two or three years’ time, there will be another Branthwaite along and we’ll find him. And, you know, he’s got to sort out the whole business, hasn’t he?
George: You know, as fans, we think very short term. Don’t sell him and don’t sell him to United and all that sort of behaviour. But he must have much, he must have a very, because of the timing that he’s taken over, he must have taken into account exactly what you were just talking about, Andy, that, you know, the transfer window is open.
And of course, the Premier League is not going to go, oh, we’ll let you off, because it was our bollocks.
Andy: No, I’m not suggesting they should let us off. I just think there’s a case to say that a new owner saying, hang on a minute, none of this length of time is the fault of the club. It’s been the fault of the previous owner.
And so we’re asking for an accommodation with regards to whatever, you know, because if we have to sell, if there is no accommodation and if we are falling foul of profit and sustainability rules again, and we have to sell in order to make those payments or balance the books or whatever, and we have to lose or we end up losing, you know, Pickford, Branthwaite, Onana, whether he wants to stay or go is immaterial and possibly another.
Then that’s just, that’s just, I’m trying to think of the right words to use. You know, we’re already behind an eight ball. If we then have to move, sell three or four players, I mean, all we’re doing is we’re hamstringing ourselves.
And the rest of the Premier League, or, you know, Richard Masters or whoever, are turning a blind eye to the fact that one of their constituent clubs is falling by the wayside. Is that a good advert for the Premier League that they just stand by and allow it to happen?
George: Um, uh, I understand what, what you’re saying, Andy, but I’m not buying the argument one little bit. If I’m just going to put my Premier League hat on, I’m going to go, sorry, that’s your business. You bollocks it up, sort it out.
Your man who was in charge is an idiot. It’s not my fault. Don’t come to me going, look, but he was an idiot. Now he’s gone. Now can we please have our ball back? No, it’s not going to happen. And I suspect freaking knows that.
And he’s budgeted for that. And he’s thinking about, you know, he’s got to look further ahead than we as fans would want to, or have to. Okay. I think it’s just how I feel about it. I mean, I hope I’m wrong and it’d be lovely if you were right, but I can’t see that happening yourself, Andy.
George: All right, fair enough. We’ll agree.
Andy: to disagree.
George: And I’ll buy the pies when you’re right, and I’m right.
Paul: I think, in a sense, I sort of agree with you both. I think, Andy, you’re right that we should be presenting that case. But I think the outcome is more closely aligned with George’s view of these things.
But I think the one thing that we’ve got to realise here, and this is, you know, I did a little smiley face on Twitter, which annoyed an awful lot of people on Friday morning.
George: You seem to annoy an awful lot of people without even trying, pal. Well…
Paul: Yeah, I can promise you it’s not real, it’s not, well it’s not deliberate, and I put a little smiley bit because one, I knew that the Friedkin thing was going to happen, and two, I promised that I wouldn’t say anything, but the smiley face was there because, first of all, it’s a conclusion to Moshiri’s time at the club
And secondly,
George: Miami farce.
Paul: Yeah, secondly, it was a conclusion to this particular transaction, or at least it was a way forward from the impasse that we got to. You know, during the week, as I said, it was a crazy, crazy week.
During the week, we had Kenneth King, who runs this company A-CAP, that it’s likely to lose around three, possibly will lose around about $3 billion from the demise of 777 in London, trying to buy everything football club, you know, an insurance company trying to buy everything football club.
Thankfully, you got no word with it. But that, you know, that’s the type of stuff that even this week, you know, the madness, that’s the type of madness that we was and the word that I heard more frequently this week, often swear words was dysfunctional.
So if I picked up the phone to somebody and asked them how is it, it was dysfunctional, everything about the week was dysfunctional. The one thing I can guarantee about these guys is that they’re highly professional.
And that they are first and first and foremost, business people. And for how many years have we talked about getting business people into the football club to run this like a proper business, these guys will do that.
And if you look at what they’ve done, at Roma, they’ve done exactly what needs to be done at Everton, they great stuff, good to hear immediately got rid of the old board, they put a new board in, they sorted out the finances, first and foremost, they wanted that at Roma and they and they did this, and they wanted to create a platform from which there was stability, and that would then allow them to go forward.
Now they rolled the dice a bit. Because if you remember that Jose Mourinho turned up there as manager, and that didn’t exactly work out to plan. I suspect that they won’t do the same at Everton in the sense of rolling the dice, because once they realised that the Mourinho thing wasn’t working, or wasn’t working in a way that they wanted it to work, you know, they scaled back.
And if you look at the amount of money that they’ve spent and everything else on the face of it, there will be a number of Evertonians going, well, they haven’t spent much money, have they? And, and, you know, if you go on to various English websites, which there seems to be a lot, in relation to Roma Football Club, you’ll find lots of fans moaning about the fact that, you know, they’re not spending huge sums of money.
And but you then have to look at their performance on the pitch and the performance on the pitch, you know, we would chop our right arms off for qualifying for, okay, they didn’t qualify for the Champions League last season, but qualifying for Europe, winning the Europe, League, which was one of their objectives.
And they will bring a huge level, a huge increase in the level of professionalism to Everton Football Club. And that will be bringing new people in, bringing new executives in, and sorting the finances out, doing pretty much what they did at Rome, which was getting hold of the existing debt, people, lots of the questions that were asked on Twitter was, you know, what, what are we going to do about our existing debt?
How much debt are we going to have under the new ownership? How much equity, which is the money that they put into the club, will there be? There’s going to be debt at Everton for quite a considerable period of time going forwards.
The question is, how much debt and at what price is that debt, what price does that debt cost, cost us? Because it will be a debt more similar to what you might consider to be a more, it’s like Arsenal and Tottenham have on their stage and putting it in very simple terms.
It will be much lower cost than our current debt, which is more like a credit card debt, in the sense that it’s short term. So we will save an awful lot of money on that. We’ll also, the amount of debt that we actually carry will be significantly reduced.
So as everybody knows, at the moment, we’re carrying around about ₤580 million of external debt and we’ve got Moshiri’s ₤450 million. Moshiri’s ₤ 450 million is going to disappear. He’s not going to get paid for it.
And Everton will have no liability to pay it going forward. So it will just be wiped clean. It will go and Macheare’s lost the money and that’s it. The ₤580 million, some of that will be paid off with cash that the Freidkins provide.
They did with Roma and the rest of it will be swapped from short -term expensive debt to much longer -term less expensive debt and that will be set against the stadium. So we will end up with probably around about ₤350 million pound of debt that’s set against the stadium but that will be in a much lower interest rate than what we’re currently paying and the rest of the money that the club needs will be provided as equity so it will be put into the club it’s not a loan it’s put into the club and it’s stated and it will be spent obviously but it stays in the club it can’t be pulled back by the new shareholders and that’s precisely what they did at Roma.
So if you look at people say they haven’t spent much money at Roma if you look at what they’ve spent in Roma since 2020 they’ve spent very nearly a billion, so 1,000 million Euros that includes the cost of obviously of buying Roma in the first place but that’s what they’ve spent and they’re probably going to have to spend a very similar amount at
George: Yeah.
Paul: You know, the people I was involved with in terms of what, what, what were we looking at? Had we been able to, um, buy Everton, a similar figure, ₤750, 800 million at an absolute minimum. That’s how much it costs to buy Everton football club, pay off the debt, provide the money that’s needed for the stadium, provide the money that’s needed for the football club.
Only a very small amount of that goes back to Farhad Moshiri. And I think, I don’t know the figures because obviously I’m not privy to what, what Friedkins agreed and it’s not, it’s not in the media and it may never be in the media.
But I think the maximum Moshiri we’ll get out of this is 50 million for everything that is put into the club. And believe me, that’s considerably more than what anybody else was offering apart from 777.
But, you know, we can discount them because they never had a chance. As I said from day one, they never had a chance of acquiring the football club. So all the current debt will go, including the debt to 777.
And it will be replaced by permanent money, which is called equity and a long term loan, which is secured against the stadium. So everything will be back on a, on a, on a stable footing. Here’s the thing that they’ve done at Roma, which is, and again, several of the questions.
And sorry, I’m not, I’m not answering each individual question. I’m just covering the topics of those questions asked. So if people ask questions, they will understand where their question comes in. And the other thing that they’ve done at Roma and they’ve done quite successfully is increase commercial revenues.
So these are commercial guys, you know, they, they make predominantly they’ve made, made the money a little bit in the film industry, as you say, George, but predominantly through owning. I don’t know what you call it.
They sell cars. So they’ve got that. I think they’re Toyota’s largest single seller of cars outside of Japan. So they, they own. Well, what’s the word Andy? So my brain’s gone dead.
Andy: Franchise dealerships.
Paul: Yeah. They own franchise dealerships in numerous States across, across the US and add a quick look before they sold eight, eight billion dollars worth of cars last year. Wow. So that’s where they make their money from.
Paul: So these are just good business people who know how to run a business and know how to run a business profitably. And they will bring those disciplines, which is what we’ve asked for for years. Certainly what I’ve asked for for years into the football club.
And they’ll, they’ll set new standards of professionalism within the club, which is what we want. Doesn’t mean that we’ll necessarily have huge sums of money to spend on players initially, but they’ll generate more revenue through their professionalism because they’ll have a better idea of how to go about getting commercial revenues into the club.
The other really interesting thing is, and this is quite unique in Italian football. So the stadium, they use the old Olympic stadium in Rome and they share it. With Lazio. With Lazio. Neither of which really like the fact that they have to share the stadium with their rivals.
But I was reading a statistic that said for the last 57 home games, they sold out every single game. Really? And in Italy, that’s an enormous achievement. And they’ve done it because they engage properly with the fan base.
They give the fans what the fans want, not necessarily what they want necessarily or shipping all the time on the pitch. But they’ve built this relationship with the fan base. And it was difficult for them to begin with because the Roma fans already had a bad experience of previous American owners in this guy.
James Palotta really messed things up. And one thing that they probably didn’t quite appreciate when they first came into Roma was that they probably should have had some locals involved in the club from a very early stage to form a bridge between what they were trying to achieve, and what the fans expected.
And also, you know, Italy. Politics, a big part, both locally and nationally, in most affairs in Italy, they find it very difficult politically to get accepted, partly because of the previous owners, but also because they didn’t necessarily have that local representation.
And whilst Andy Bell and George Downing, their bid has failed, and I don’t see them having a formal position going forwards, because I just don’t think it’s in their nature to do that, having failed.
I hope, and I think that part of these loans, part of the money that’s about to be paid back to Everton will go straight to MSP and will also include George Downing and Andy Bell. So they will be squared off, and from their perspective, that’s obviously, they would have loved to have acquired the club, but, you know, they’re getting this next best thing, which is they’re going to get their money back.
As I say, I don’t think, and some people have asked the question, do you think Andy and George, the other Andy and George, will get their money back? Well, if you let me know how much you put in, George, I’ll ask.
George:Two million!
Paul: All right, I shall ask tomorrow on your behalf. I just hope that they do engage with, you know, local people, obviously, they’ll engage with the fan base and they will engage with the fan advisory board and stuff like that going forwards.
But also, you know, there are some influential Evertonians in and around the city of Liverpool, as proven by Andy and George and others as well. And it would do them no harm at all if they took the lessons that they learned at Roma and applied them very early on in the process, as Everton.
Lots of people asked, you know, how do I feel about it? Am I pleased about it? And I’m very encouraged by it. I think, obviously, I would have really liked Andy and George to get the deal and the other people that were involved at MSD are good people and they know football really well.
But I think these people coming in, the Friedkin Group, are going to be very good for us. And it gives us what we’ve all been crying out for, stability and professionalism and people who know how to run a business properly.
And from that, then hopefully, we can recreate a football team that reflects who Everton actually are, not victim.
Andy: It’s not just the team, no, is it? It’s the club as well. Yeah, the public image of the club has been damaged and as I said before, this huge repair work to be done. So as you said, if these guys are professional and businessmen, hopefully they’ll go about it in the right way and in a sensible timescale as well.
Obviously, fans want things to happen overnight. That ain’t going to happen overnight. But when they put their plans together and appoint people and bring in new people, hopefully they’ll all be on the same page and have some real structure about the way they go about rebuilding and repairing the situation that they’re about to inherit.
George: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah, absolutely, Andy. And they will make decisions that sometimes I think fans might not appreciate in the first instance. But they know, like, I’m not picking myself up in any sense, or comparing me to them.
And like I’ve always said, you’ve got to run the business properly in order to be a citizen. What happens off the pitch impacts what’s on the pitch. And for so long, Moshiri never recognized that. And that’s why, and that’s why we, you know, and thank goodness that we survived the situations that we found ourselves in.
And a lot of which is down to the fans as well, in terms of our survival. And that should, you know, as we come out of this awful period from under Moshiri, that should never be lost and never be forgotten.
The role of the fans
Andy: All of this. You would imagine actually that while the Friedkin people have been considering having an interest in acquiring Everton Football Club that they’ve noticed or they’ll have been advised and informed of what kind of animal the Everton fanbase is in as much as we’ve been through three years of utter crap on the pitch, off the pitch, and the fanbase has pulled together like nobody could have imagined and even thought was possible.
And they must be thinking, Crikey, look at these guys. They sell out every game. They go to ridiculous lengths to get behind the players who have been struggling at times and what have you. Just imagine what we could do if we could turn this into a success.
Just imagine the kind of further that
George: I bet that’s part of why they’ve made such a big bid and seemingly got the gig, Andy. There is a new stadium, there’s only one more year and they must have respect for the fanbase.
Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George: I, you know, everything that you’re saying and everything that Paul’s saying, finally, it’s really nice to sit and listen to us three being positive about our club.
Paul: Yeah, absolutely. Funny enough, I will name him. A guy called David Murphy asked, can you give three advantages, three disadvantages, three hopes and three fears for this takeover? I think we’ve already given the advantages and we’ve already given the hopes.
I think, to be fair, just to balance it out, there are one or two things that we have to consider. One is the fact that already owning Roma, we are effectively entering a multi -club operation. So, where do we sit relative to Roma?
Are we equal to Roma? Are we less than Roma? Are we greater than Roma in terms of their management resources and everything else? What, where do their priorities lie? That, I think it’s too early to know the answers to that, but I think it’s something that, and I hope that either the Friedkin’s or the Friedkin’s advisors are listening, it’s something that they have to answer.
And they have to answer, not only for us, but they also have to answer it for the Roma fans. We’re not wanting to compete with Roma, we just want a successful football club. Well, not until we get into the order.
Well, then that becomes the next issue, that if in three or four years time we end up competing in the same European competitions, what happens then? Now, there is some precedent in terms of, well, strictly speaking, it’s against UEFA’s rules for two clubs to enter the same competition that are commonly owned.
But there are some examples where that’s happening. So Manchester City and Gerona in Spain. And, you know, what happens with Manchester United and Nice with regards to INEOS? So I think whilst it’s a potential issue, it’s not going to become an issue for some years, I don’t think, unless Everton perform unexpected miracles.
But that is an issue that needs to be resolved. And I think UEFA are going to find it difficult to stick to their initial principles of not allowing two clubs commonly owned to be in the same competition.
I think they have to just accept that whatever happens, the football’s played in good faith and there’s true competition between the clubs, because that’s how it should be, just the fact that we’ve got the same owners.
If we were to draw against Roma in whatever competition, then we would want to beat Roma as much as Roma would want to beat us. So why would that necessarily be an issue?
George: By the time we get into Europe, the UEFA will have caught up with the fact that multi -club models are a part of the future.
Paul: I suspect you’re right, George, I think you are. But just trying to provide some balance, that is currently an unresolved issue, but not really particularly relevant. What other possible disadvantages are there?
I really can’t think of any, to be honest, any other than the fact that even with the best laid plans, nothing in life is ever guaranteed, but then that would be true of anybody that’s coming in. So it’s not a really, a real disadvantage, it’s just something you just have to be aware of when new people take over a business, they do so with the best of intentions, and it doesn’t always work out the way that they want.
But on the evidence so far of how they run their own businesses and how they’ve run Roma, I think we should be fairly confident. And certainly if we just want to take where we currently are as the bottom line, we’re gonna be so far ahead of where we are currently, that almost everything will be beneficial.
So I’m reasonably confident on that. As I say, I don’t think there’s gonna be a huge change to our plans over the summer. I do think that, had to take over not happened, we might have lost three out of the four players that we’ve mentioned earlier.
I suspect that probably now becomes two out of the four players. So I think the prospects of losing Pickford and the prospects of losing DCL have reduced quite significantly as a result of this takeover because one would hope that they could see that there’s gonna be greater stability in the club going forward.
So I think that’s a big positive. It doesn’t do anything necessarily about Onana, doesn’t do anything necessarily about Branthwaite, but I think it would do with the other two. And I think also if we’re looking for more positives, regardless of what budgets we’ve got by the end of the transfer window, surely to goodness players who might never have considered coming to Everton because of the chaos surrounding Farhad Moshiri might recognise that actually that chaos is now behind us and this is once more a professionally run football club organisation.
And I don’t think we’re gonna change manager and I don’t think we’re gonna change director of football, at least not in the first instance. I think Dyche has probably earned time for next season.
George: Bye!
Paul: I can’t believe for a second that they would want to change Dyche in the first instance. And I know a few people have messaged me and said, you know, aren’t we now going to get a better manager or not?
Are we going to see more attractive football at Goodison in the last year at Goodison? We might see more attractive football, but I think it will be under the same manager. And I think to refer to Dyche, I think he deserves it.
George: I disagree with that.
Paul: No, that might not be necessarily what everybody wants to hear, but, you know, that’s just
George: The business of saying what everybody wants to hear is
Andy: We’d all like to see more attractive football, we’d all like to see us winning football. I think the biggest thing that the new ownership can do is change the mindset within the club, all levels within the club, off the field, on the field, that we are no longer going to be also rounds, feeders for other clubs.
The aim is to return Everton to the top table. It may take longer than any of us would want it to, but changing the mindset, the immediate, we go a goal behind it, oh, go blimey, we’re running another struggle.
It’s just a case of, you know, all right, we’ve fallen behind, we’ve just got to go out and score too. Change the mindset, get people thinking positively about Everton Football Club at all levels on and off the pitch.
That would go an enormous way to repairing the wrongs of the past.
George: I bet the people who are in their jobs at the moment, Andy, were actually running Everton Football Club because it’s not machinery, it’s not the board anymore. I’m sure they’ll be thinking, I hope I keep my job, but they must also be thinking, oh, thank Christ for this.
Thank Christ for a breath of fresh air through the place and to sweep out what has been, to my taste, negativity and corruption for a very long time.
Andy: I shall say, change the mindset.
George: Yes. No, no, I agree with you, darling. Yes. Yes, of course. Yes, because you were arguing with me before. I know, and I’m your elder brother. I shouldn’t be doing that. I should be bringing you on. Oh.
Paul: All right, just just just running through any, any, I thought I saw a couple of questions that I haven’t answered yet. Maybe you need to talk to yourself when I just run through all your questions.
Andy: As we speak then, Denmark had a head against Slovenia, but that proves it’s live.
Paul: Just waiting for the big one later. I know what I wanted to talk about. Some good news, I think. We’ve changed shirt manufacturers.
Andy: Yeah.
Paul: Yes. So, we’re now, in Italian, being Castore. Castore. Yeah. And the club, I haven’t, actually I haven’t looked, to be honest, what the club have claimed, but I know certainly the Telegraph claimed that it was a doubling of the previous deal.
With Hummel. With Hummel. And if that is the case, that’s very good news. And what they were leveraging off was the fact that we’re moving into the new stadium. But I think there’s a little bit of, a little bit of spin here.
Because I think that whilst it’s gone from 10 to 20 million, you actually, they’re going to be doing other things as well. So, they’re going to, I think the Castore name will appear on much more of Everton’s sort of, you know, advertising and marketing than maybe, you know, around the stadium.
I’m not saying stadium naming rights, but, you know, the branding around the stadium. If you remember when USM got involved, obviously they did Finch Farm. But then that megaphone came in and there was a sort of almost blanket coverage of Megafon around Goodison Park, if you recall, you know, all the digital advertising holdings and stuff.
And I suspect that’s what this deal, the Castore deal, which is very, very welcome, the fact that it’s gone from 10 to 20 million. And congratulations to those that did this. But I think it’s all, I think we’re not comparing like with like to say that it’s doubled.
You know, there’s an awful lot more to this than just, just, just the shirts themselves. What hasn’t changed is, of course, the relationship with Kitbag, as it used to be, Fanatics. And still, we’re going to have the issue that, you know, if you’re in Ireland or if you’re in most, most of the US states, it will be impossible to buy a shirt.
It’d be impossible to walk into a store and buy a shirt. And I think, you know, that’s one of the things that an incoming owner needs to address. They need to address the relationship between Castore, everything football club and retailers, and move away from this model that they’ve got with Fanatics, because it doesn’t, it doesn’t work.
And I’m sure like lots of people who do podcasts and things, I get loads of people saying, you know, is there anything you can do about this? And frankly, there isn’t, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s what the club have got themselves signed up for.
And that needs to change. And hopefully now under new ownership. And as I say, given the evidence of what has happened in Roma, these guys know a little bit more about retailing and about distribution and about selling products, you know, given that they sell Toyota, they know how to sell a product.
So I’m hoping it’s going to change. Good. And I think on that rare positive note,
George: Run, run, run for the hills, quick.
Paul: I think, I think we’re done. Right. Before we speak next, I think the fixtures come out this week on the 18th.
Andy: I have no idea, Paul, to be honest.
Paul: Okay, well, if they don’t, I apologise, but everybody will be waking up on the 18th now and say, yes, said. I think they come out on the 18th. Right. Or should they, you know, can’t be the 18th of July, that would be too late.
Andy: Well, we’ll see who we open up against then.
Paul: All right, I’m not going to say anything else. There you go. A podcast mixed with a huge amount of sadness because of Kevin Campbell and any levity in the podcast as a result of what’s happening off the pitch has to be balanced.
George: and Campbell would have appreciated it.
Paul: He would have done. I said that his soul will be in peace and whether you’re religious or not, wherever he is, he will be looking down and smiling on everything and hoping that those smiles turn into good fortune for us.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah.
Paul: OK, thank you, gents, and thank you to everybody for listening. Thank you for all the questions. I think I’ve got through everyone. If anybody feels that their question hasn’t been answered, just drop me a line and I’ll either answer it personally to you.
Paul: Right.
Andy: Right, just contact the podcasting ombudsman.
Paul: You know, it’s George Costigan at Father’s Day.
George: Father’s Day magnum section.
Paul: Actually, that is one question. And what is your favourite?
George: mine yeah i haven’t tried yet and everybody says they’re brilliant because uh the vegan ones so i’m going to hold fire until i can buy myself a vegan magnum at the moment the salted caramel has pulled position oh no no no don’t say double chocolate and the no no no
Andy: No, no, no, no.
Paul: I think Andy’s a white chocolate man.
George: The thin brown chocolate and the white one, the minty one. Yeah, it’s a bit good there. There’s no such thing as a disappointing magnum, is there?
Andy: No, but I think I’m not I’m not I’m not overly struck on the salted cannibal one personally I’ll have them them
Paul: Yeah, when this podcast is finished because it can’t possibly tell you the story. I’ll tell you a story about disappointing magnums
Andy: Oh, okay.
George: We’ve got Clint Eastwood in it.
Andy: I’m not magnum force.
Paul: No, the ice cream. OK, on that note, because I know you’re going to be on tender hooks waiting for the story. And I’m sorry for everybody else for not hearing it, but there you go. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Paul: Thank you, everybody, for listening.
Andy: And we’ll get on to crumbling cookies next week.
Paul: Yeah, thank you everybody, you know, disappointing news, well more than disappointing news, sorry. Yeah, some good news as well, some great news about the club going forward and that’s what we’ve got to look to.
Paul: So thank you everybody, thank you George Andy and yeah, we’ll speak to you all soon. Cheers. Cheers mate.